RWBY
RWBY (pronounced "ruby") is an American animated web series and media franchise6 created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth.78The show is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people train to become warriors (called "Huntsmen" and "Huntresses") to protect their world from monsters called Grimm. The name RWBY is derived from the four main characters' forenames: Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, as well as their associated theme colors; Red, White, Black, and Yellow.9Following several promotional trailers, the first episode was screened at the Rooster Teeth convention event RTX and then released on their website in July 2013. Subsequent episodes were released approximately weekly, first to Rooster Teeth's subscribers and then to YouTube a week later. The series became a viral hit, and a second season, subtitled Volume 2, was released in July 2014. During production of Volume 3, on February 1, 2015, Oum died after falling into a coma that was caused by an allergic reaction during a medical procedure.10 This resulted in a delay in Volume 3's production, as well as an overall shift in the show's production and release schedule. Despite the creator's death, the remaining crew members confirmed their intention to continue the series,11 and Volume 3 was released in 2015 as planned.12 Meanwhile, the first two seasons were released to home media and made available on streaming services such as Netflixand Crunchyroll, the latter of which would include releases of the current season in their simulcasts. In October 2016, the fourth season was released. The series has also been dubbed in Japanese and broadcast by Tokyo MX,13 in partnership with Warner Bros. Japan. As of January 2019, the show ended its Volume 6 with a seventh currently in production and scheduled to premiere on November 2.14 Rooster Teeth released a video game called RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, as well as a spin-off series which is called RWBY Chibi, in 2016. Contents * 1Development * 2Cast and characters * 3Web series ** 3.1Promotion ** 3.2Release ** 3.3International releases * 4Manga ** 4.1RWBY ** 4.2RWBY: Official Manga Anthology ** 4.3RWBY: The Official Manga * 5Music ** 5.1''Volume 1 Soundtrack'' ** 5.2''Volume 2 Soundtrack'' ** 5.3''Volume 3 Soundtrack'' ** 5.4''Volume 4 Soundtrack'' ** 5.5''Volume 5 Soundtrack'' ** 5.6''Volume 6 Soundtrack'' * 6Other media ** 6.1Video games ** 6.2''RWBY Chibi'' ** 6.3Comics ** 6.4Appearances in other media * 7Reception ** 7.1Critical response ** 7.2Associations with anime ** 7.3Awards and nominations * 8References * 9External links Developmentedit Monty Oum, the creator of RWBY RWBY had been a long-standing concept of Oum's for years before it began development. Towards the end of his work on the 10th season of Rooster Teeth's Red vs. Blue, he developed the color-coding approach to character names and design as a hook for the series.16 During production on Red vs. Blue''season 10, Oum asked series creator Burnie Burns if they could produce ''RWBY following the conclusion of that season. Burns, worried for the production schedule, told Oum "If you finish Season 10, then you can do whatever you want." Production on RWBY began as intended, with the first trailer being finished within two weeks and premiering after the credits of the Red vs. Blue season 10 finale on November 5, 2012.17 Oum designed the characters with assistance from artist Ein Lee, utilizing designs inspired by classic fairy tale characters.16 Each character has an associated color, and it is the first letters of the main character's colors, red, white, black, and yellow, that give the series its name.18 The characters' names also share the same letter and the meaning as the colour (e.g. "Weiss Schnee" translates to "snow white" in German). The series was originally written by Oum, along with fellow Rooster Teeth employees Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross.19Oum was initially concerned about a story focusing on female characters being developed by a primarily male crew, but said they managed to do well developing the female characters.17 Regarding the design, Oum wanted to "present a two-dimensional, toon-shaded look, but with all of the depth and complexity of a 3D-animated production". Seasons 1 to 3 were animated by Rooster Teeth's internal animation team using Smith Micro's Poser software, out of assets built on Autodesk Maya.2021 Starting in Season 4, episodes are now being animated in Maya. The series' music is composed by Jeff Williams, who previously composed the soundtracks for Seasons 8–10 of Red vs. Blue, and features vocals by Williams' daughter, Casey Lee Williams. Cast and charactersedit Main article: List of RWBY characters Lead voice actresses Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Arryn Zech and Barbara Dunkelmanat RTX 2017 * Lindsay Jones as Ruby Rose * Kara Eberle as Weiss Schnee * Arryn Zech as Blake Belladonna * Barbara Dunkelman as Yang Xiao Long * Miles Luna as Jaune Arc * Jen Brown as Pyrrha Nikos * Monty Oum (Volume 1-2) and Neath Oum (Volume 3-present) as Lie Ren * Samantha Ireland as Nora Valkyrie Web seriesedit Main article: List of RWBY episodes The story takes place in the world of Remnant, composed of four kingdoms that are plagued by malevolent creatures known as the "Creatures of Grimm". Prior to the events of the series, the world was overseen by two brother gods who were initially at odds with each other as the God of Darkness created the Grimm to destroy everything the God of Light creates. The two eventually reach an agreement and created humanity, who were bestowed magic by the God of Darkness. But the human race were wiped out by the gods due to the actions of Salem, a vengeful woman who they cursed with immortality for trying to manipulate them into reviving her beloved Ozma. Soon after life returned to Remnant, the gods having long left it to its devices, Ozma was allowed to return to the living world as a reincarnating spirit with the task of restoring harmony among the new human race. This ultimately placed him and Salem, who turned herself into a human-Grimm hybrid and now seeks to subvert the new race, at odds with each other. Eventually, the discovery of Dust allows mankind to fight back against the Grimm. In the present day, having formed a cabal to guard their world's secrets, Ozma's current incarnation Ozpin establishes the academies in the four cities of Remnant to train people to battle the Grimm as Huntsmen or Huntresses.22The academies were also built to conceal the four relics that would bring the gods back the Remnant, each vault access by one of the Four Maidens whom Ozpin's cabal protects from falling into evil hands. The series focuses on four girls that enrolled in Beacon Academy in the kingdom of Vale: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee from the Atlas kingdom whose family deals in Dust, Blake Belladonna of the half-human Faunus race, and Ruby's half-sister Yang Xiao Long. Together, they form team RWBY ("ruby") and are trained to become Huntresses alongside team JNPR ("juniper"), team CRDL ("cardinal"), and team CFVY ("coffee"), later joined by team SSSN ("sun") from Haven Academy in Mistral along many others.1623 At the time of Team RWBY's formation, numerous Dust thefts are carried out in Vale by local crime lord Roman Torchwick as he and the White Fang, a terrorist organization composed of Faunus which Blake was a member of, were hired by Salem's apprentice Cinder Fall in a scheme to destroy Beacon and plunge Remnant into chaos. The plan comes together during the annual inter-academy Vytal Festival, with Cinder acquiring the power of the Fall Maiden while killing off Ozpin and Team JNPR's Pyrrha Nikos before being defeated by Ruby unconsciously awakening her powers. In the aftermath of their school's destruction, Team RWBY's members scatter to deal with their personal issues as they eventually reunite at Haven Academy. Joined by Ruby and Yang's uncle Qrow Branwen who is part of Ozpin's cabal, the legendary huntress Maria Calavera who becomes Ruby's mentor, the surviving members of Team JNPR, and a boy named Oscar Pine who became the vessel for their headmaster, Team RWBY learns Ozpin's past conflicts with Salem as she desires the four relics as part of her own agenda. Promotionedit A series of four promotional trailers, one for each lead character, were released. They were primarily produced by Oum and assistant animator Shane Newville.24 Each trailer begins by unveiling one of the four primary characters and then showing a detailed action sequence.19 The "Red" trailer was shown after the credits for Red vs. Blue's season 10 finale in November 2012.1925 It was followed by the "White" trailer in February 2013.26 The "Black" trailer was unveiled at a PAX East panel at the end of March and was the first to include voice-acted dialogue.24 Following the premiere of the "Black" trailer, Oum noted with regret that the first two trailers were shorter and had less character development.24 The "Yellow" trailer was shown at Rooster Teeth's A-Kon panel on June 1, 2013.27 Music from the trailers was sold as digital downloads at several online retailers.28 On July 5, 2013, at the RWBY panel for their RTX 2013 event, Rooster Teeth premiered the first episode of RWBY,2930 and would post the episode to their website on July 18.31 Releaseedit Following the premiere of RWBY in July 2013, Rooster Teeth posted new episodes for the first season, subtitled Volume 1, streaming weekly on their website, with access two hours early for their sponsors.32 The new episode would be uploaded to YouTube the next week. On August 16, 2013, streaming site Crunchyroll announced it would simulcast RWBY.3334 Volume 1 ran for 16 episodes, varying in length. Volume 1 concluded in November 2013, and was then released to DVD and Blu-ray.2235 The second season, subtitled Volume 2, was screened at RTX on July 4, 2014, and premiered on July 24.36 It consisted of 12 episodes, with the final episode released on October 30, after which it was released on DVD and Blu-ray. Volume 3 premiered on October 24, 2015 along with an episode of the RWBY''backstory series ''World of Remnant.37 For Volume 4, Rooster Teeth producer and co-director Gray G. Haddock said that Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross were writing for the series.38 The season debuted on October 22, 2016. In January 2017, a fifth season was announced to be in development,39 and was released on October 14. On February 1, 2015, Rooster Teeth announced that both volumes of RWBY so far were available for streaming on Netflix.40 In 2017, Rooster Teeth announced that Rooster Teeth First members would get episodes one week earlier than the general public.41 On September 15, 2018, Rooster Teeth CEO Matt Hullum announced that RWBY''Volume 6 will be released exclusively on the company's website. This decision was made after many of Rooster Teeth's videos on YouTube were demonetized for various reasons.42 International releasesedit The Blu-ray and DVD releases in Australia were handled by Hanabee Entertainment.43 The first volume was released in the UK by Animatsu Entertainment on May 4, 2015, on DVD.44 On August 15, 2014, Rooster Teeth announced that a local Japanese dub was being developed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Japan. Hullum declared they would be marketing the show as an anime: "This is the first time any American-made anime has been marketed to Japan. It definitely usually works the other way around, and we're really pleased about that."45 Warner Bros. has also acquired local merchandising rights as well.46 Volume 3 was screened in select theaters on December 3, 2016.4748 Volume 4 was released in select theaters for a limited two-week run from October 7 to 20, 2017.49 To promote this, the show was broadcast on Tokyo MX and AbemaTV in July 2017 under the title ''RWBY 1-3: The Beginning, which featured episodes from volumes 1 to 3 condensed into 12 episodes.135051 Mangaedit RWBYedit RWBY is the manga adaptation of the American anime web series of the same name written by manga artist Shirow Miwa.52 It has been published in Shueisha's monthly seinen Ultra Jump magazine. The first arc of the manga closely followed the storyline of the four trailers, while subsequent chapters explored original storylines.53 The first chapter was released in the Ultra Jump December issue, on November 19, 2015.54 It had colored center and back pages, along with additional art from the manga.55 The English translation was published in Viz Media's Weekly Shōnen Jump manga anthology and released for audiences worldwide56 on October 31, 2016 as previously stated.57 Like the anime, the RWBY manga follows the members of Team RWBY – Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long – and their adventures as they train to become Huntresses at the prestigious Beacon Academy. The manga delves into the motivations and backstory of the four main characters, giving new insights and context. Many characters from the main series also make appearances. The manga also explains some concepts and elements of the setting, such as the Grimm and Dust. The remaining six chapters cover an original story chronologically set between Volumes 1 and 2 involving teams RWBY and JNPR fighting King Taijitu merged by a Grimm accidentally let loose as Torchwick investigated a possible entrance to Mountain Glenn. The final chapter was published in the February 2017 issue of Ultra Jump in January, with a teaser about a second volume.58 RWBY: Official Manga Anthologyedit RWBY: Official Manga Anthology is a manga adaption of RWBY. It consists of side stories that follow the plot of the show, put together by multiple manga artists. It was released in a multi-volume format.59 On December 23, 2016, Japanese entertainment company Home-sha announced Vol. 1: Red Like Roses, the first volume of RWBY: Official Manga Anthology and stated it was coming in Spring 2017.60 It was later announced on March 25, 2017 that it would be released on May 19, 2017.61 The second volume, Vol. 2: Mirror Mirror, was released on June 19, 2017.62 The third volume, Vol. 3: From Shadows, was released on September 19, 2017.63 The fourth volume, Vol. 4: I Burn, was released in October 19, 2017.64 Viz Media has licensed and published the manga in the United States.65 RWBY: The Official Mangaedit RWBY: The Official Manga is a manga adaptation written by manga artist Bunta Kinami.66 The first volume of the manga was released on November 19, 2018 in Weekly Shonen Jump67 and December 20, 2018 in Weekly Shōnen Jump.68 Musicedit Jeff Williams The music for all volumes of RWBY has been composed primarily by Jeff Williams, with additional composition by Steve Goldshein, Mason Lieberman, and Alex Abraham. Williams was a member of the band Trocadero, who did the music for Rooster Teeth's Red vs. Blue, and eventually composed by himself the music for the three seasons of Red vs. Blue that preceded RWBY. Most of the vocals are provided by Williams' daughter Casey Lee Williams, with some additional vocals by Lamar Hall and Sandy Casey. RWBY's soundtrack features a variety of genres, most notably intense, fast-paced rock music. In an interview with Rooster Teeth, Williams mentioned that he uses his lyrics to foreshadow future events on occasion. In developing the songs, Williams uses the show's script and picks out random words and phrases that he thinks are cool. He would also get advanced knowledge as to the character's development, their background stories and lives. He then picks out the emotions related to the scene, adds tempo, drumbeats, rhythm, and eventually composes the song from there.69 Volume 1 Soundtrackedit |- | colspan="2" | |- ! colspan="2" |Singles from RWBY: Volume 1 Soundtrack |- | colspan="2" | # "Red Like Roses" # "Mirror Mirror" # "From Shadows" # "I Burn" # "This Will Be the Day" # "RWBY: Chapter 1" # "Red Like Roses Part II" # "Gold" |} The official soundtrack for RWBY: Volume 1 was released by Jeff Williams on November 12, 2013. It includes the songs used in the trailers, the intro to the series' episodes, and also the score music to each episode. The soundtrack also contains previously unreleased songs such as "I May Fall" and "Wings".70 These songs were, however, briefly played at the end of various episodes. Volume 1 reached number one on iTunes and beating out the movie soundtrack to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.71 The soundtrack reached number 22 on Billboard's Top Rock Albums charts.72 Volume 2 Soundtrackedit The official soundtrack for RWBY: Volume 2 was released on December 2, 2014. The soundtrack reached number 6 on Billboard's Hard Rock Albums.73 |- | colspan="2" | |- ! colspan="2" |Singles from RWBY: Volume 2 Soundtrack |- | colspan="2" | # "Time to Say Goodbye" |} Volume 3 Soundtrackedit The official soundtrack for RWBY: Volume 3 was released on May 3, 2016. The album reached number 5 on the Billboard's Hard Rock Albums chart,74 and number 12 on the Top Rock Albums chart.75 |} Volume 4 Soundtrackedit The official soundtrack for RWBY: Volume 4 was released on June 16, 2017. The album reached number 79 on the Billboard 200.76 It also appeared on the magazine's other album charts, with number 5 on Independent Albums,77number 6 on Hard Rock Albums,78 and number 18 on Top Rock Albums.79 |} Volume 5 Soundtrackedit The official soundtrack for RWBY: Volume 5 was released on June 8, 2018, and on January 1, 2019 for Spotify. It peaked at 113th on the Billboard 200,80 and also peaked in the Top 20 of the Top Rock (#18) and Hard Rock (#6) charts as well, along with charting at #7 at the Independent Albums chart.81 |} Volume 6 Soundtrackedit The official soundtrack for RWBY: Volume 6 was released on June 28, 2019. |} Other mediaedit Video gamesedit Jordan Scott, the creator of RWBY: Grimm Eclipse For Rooster Teeth's anniversary in 2014, fan Jordan Scott created a video game based on RWBY, titled RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, using the Unity game engine.82 It was in development for a total of five months.83 Based on the events in the first trailer, the demo was a "hack 'n slash survival" featuring Ruby facing escalating waves of Grimm attacks. Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku praised its combo system, which "excellently mirrored its animated counterpart", and its unlockable skills, saying, "you'll feel like an unstoppable badass akin to Ruby in the series."84 At RTX 2014, Rooster Teeth announced that they had hired Scott, and officially picked up the game. An early demo of the game was available for consumers to play at the event, and the game's title was changed from "Grim Eclipse" to''"Grimm Eclipse"'' to match the spelling of the creatures in the show. Rooster Teeth CEO Matt Hullum stated, "RWBY is a natural choice for us to focus on for our first in-house produced video game. Fans can expect that we will bring the same level of originality in action, comedy and design to the video game that has made the RWBY animated series such a hit."8586 On December 1, 2015 the game was released as an Early Access title on Steam,87 with the full PC release on July 5, 2016. The game was released for macOS on October 13, 2016, and was later released for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on January 17, 2017. The game allows one to four of the main characters in any combination(s) to battle through waves of Grimm. They are also on the trail of a mysterious company and its founder. The action takes place in the Emerald Forest, Mountain Glenn, Forever Fall and ultimately to an island named after the antagonist, Doctor Merlot. At the Evo 2017 gaming event, it was announced that an upcoming fighting game called BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle by Arc System Works would feature cross-over characters from BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth, and RWBY.88 Ruby Rose was a featured participant in the game's first teaser trailer,89 and Weiss was confirmed in the second character introduction trailer.90 Arc Systems later announced that Blake and Yang would be available as free downloadable content.9192 At Evo 2019, it was announced that villain Neo Politan would be added to the game as part of a 2.0 update scheduled for November 21.93 NHN Entertainment developed a tower defense mobile game based on the show, RWBY: Amity Arena, which was released for Android and iOS devices in October 2018.94 RWBY Chibiedit Main article: RWBY Chibi RWBY Chibi is a comedic animated spin-off of RWBY compromising 57 three- to six-minute-long episodes in three seasons. It was first announced as part of Rooster Teeth's 13th-anniversary celebration on April 1, 2016, and Episode 1 premiered on May 7, 2016.95 Its first season concluded on October 15, 2016. Each episode consists of several scenes where aspects of RWBY's characters are usually exaggerated for comic effect. The episodes follow no strict chronological order, nor do they follow the strict canon of the main show. In January 2017, Rooster Teeth confirmed that a second season would launch that May.39 Comicsedit At New York Comic Con 2018, Rooster Teeth announced a partnership with DC Comics to publish RWBY and Gen:Lock comics starting in 2019. The RWBY''comic is written by Marguerite Bennett and drawn by Mirka Andolfo and Arif Prianto.96 Appearances in other mediaedit Yang and Weiss appeared as combatants in the online series ''Death Battle by ScrewAttack (a division of Rooster Teeth), where they fought Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII and Mitsuru Kirijo from Persona 3, respectively.9798 The series creator, Ben Singer, talked with Oum about including a RWBY character on Death Battle before Oum's passing.99 Receptionedit Critical responseedit Commentators discussing the promotional trailers lauded the show's animation style and its musical soundtrack. The trailers prompted enthusiastic anticipation for the series premiere.192426 When the first episode premiered at RTX, it was popular with attendees to the point that seating was full at all three screenings. Amanda Rush, writing for Crunchyroll, noted the anime and Western influences of the series, and praised it as "quick-witted, exciting, lovely to look at" saying fans of anime would enjoy it.22 The Yakima Herald-Republic called it "thrilling" and "captivating" and praised its "beautiful" 3D character animation.100 The Austin Chronicle described the premiere as making Oum the "rock star" of Rooster Teeth.101 The series has reportedly contributed to a 9% increase in views for Rooster Teeth's official YouTube channel.102 Kotaku's Richard Eisenbeis praised the series for its clever use of fairytale elements, fun and enjoyable dialogue, and the fighting choreography, but was critical about the short nature of the episodes, stating that, "The biggest drawback in doing a micro-series ... is that there is precious little time for good characterization". He was also critical of the technical issues of the animation, mentioning that the animation is good when the audience is unable to see the character's feet. He believes that RWBY is "a good first step into a world of possibilities."103 Associations with animeedit "As huge fans of anime, we are honored that RWBY is the first American anime production to be exported to audiences in Japan." Lindsay Jones (Ruby Rose) said "We were worried about the reception we’d get, since we’re a western company producing something normally related to Japan. Funnily enough, we showed our Japanese cohorts RWBY and they started arguing about whether it was anime or not! But seeing the reception from audiences is so surreal, and we never expected it."105 A Movie Pilot blog listed the RWBY as anime topic among its "flame wars you don't want to be part of".106 Anime News Network writers Paul Jensen and James Beckett wrote: "We don't have any formal reviews of RWBY here on ANN, but it is kind of cool to see an American production make it to the release encyclopedia."107 Michael Mauer of The Cornell Daily Sun wrote that the issue was still being debated among the anime community,108 while Sabrina Pyun of ComicsVerse wrote "The show is known for many things, from its dubious status as an anime to its unique 3D animation style."109 However, mainstream news articles dated after Hullum's statement and previewing later seasons and the franchise have referred to RWBY''as an American anime, including ''Variety,110 Collider,111 iDigitalTimes,112Entertainment Weekly,6 Adweek,113 and Deadline Hollywood.114 Awards and nominationsedit Referencesedit # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # ^ Jump up to:a''' b'' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # ^ Jump up to:''a b'' # '''^ # ^''' # ^ Jump up to:''a b'' ''c # ^ Jump up to:a'' ''b # ^''' # ^ Jump up to:a''' b'' ''c d'' # '''^ # ^''' # ^ Jump up to:''a b'' ''c # ^''' # ^ Jump up to:a''' b'' ''c d'' # '''^ # ^ Jump up to:'''''a b'' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # ^ Jump up to:''a b'' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ DC and Rooster Teeth Announce New Details For Upcoming Gen:LOCK And RWBY Comics # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # '''^ # ^''' # ^ Jump up to:''a b # ^''' # '''^ # ^